General

Brand	Micron
Model	M500DC
Capacity	480GB
Usage Class	Enterprise

Interface

Host Interface	SATA 6Gb/s
Total Interface Bandwidth	6 Gb/s

Physical Dimension

Form Factor	2.5" 7mm

Flash & Endurance

NAND Flash	2D MLC
Drive Writes Per Day	2
Total Bytes Written	1870 TBW

Performance

Sequential Read	425 MB/s
Sequential Write	375 MB/s
Random Read IOPS	63000
Random Write IOPS	35000
Average Latency	μs

Reliability

Mean Time Between Failures	2 Million Hours
Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate	1.0×10⁻¹⁷
Power Loss Protection	Yes

Engineer's Note

The Micron M500DC 480GB (MTFDDAK480MBB-1AE16ABYY) is purpose-built for read-intensive to mixed enterprise workloads such as CDN edge caching, web hosting, and boot/database logging tiers, combining 2 DWPD endurance with 1,870 TBW on proven 2D MLC NAND for dependable long-life operation. Compared with typical entry SATA data center SSDs in its class, it delivers a strong balance of sustained SATA performance at 425/375 MB/s and 63K/35K IOPS, making it a cost-efficient choice where consistency, endurance, and low-risk deployment matter more than peak interface bandwidth.

Endurance & Reliability

With an endurance rating of 1,870 TBW and 2 DWPD, this 480GB SSD is designed to handle very heavy write activity far beyond typical OS, application, and boot-drive usage. In practical terms, for a standard system-drive workload, this level of endurance can support many years of operation—often around 10 years or more under normal enterprise use patterns—giving buyers strong confidence in long-term durability. For enterprise reliability, built-in power loss protection (PLP) helps preserve in-flight data and protect metadata integrity if power is interrupted unexpectedly, reducing the risk of corruption or incomplete writes. Its UBER rating of 1.0E-16 means the probability of an uncorrectable bit error is extremely low, which is an important indicator of dependable data integrity for business-critical storage environments.

Technical Specs & Insights

1. The SATA interface ensures broad drop-in compatibility with mainstream enterprise servers and storage arrays, simplifying upgrades without requiring PCIe infrastructure changes.
2. Its sequential read performance accelerates bulk data access, helping analytics, backup, and media-serving workloads move large files with consistently low wait time.
3. Its random read capability supports highly responsive access to small-block data, making it well suited for virtualization, OLTP databases, and read-intensive enterprise applications.
4. The rated write endurance enables sustained daily rewrites over the drive’s service life, giving enterprise teams predictable longevity for mixed-use and transaction-heavy deployments.
5. Built on 2D MLC NAND, the drive prioritizes data reliability, write consistency, and firmware stability over low-cost density, which is critical for always-on business environments.

Capacity Sweet

Lower capacity reference: 240GB Higher capacity reference: 960GB In this enterprise SSD family, the 480GB model sits at the practical sweet spot. Compared with the 240GB version, it gives much better headroom for OS growth, logs, patches, swap, and application data, reducing the risk of early capacity pressure in always-on environments. Compared with the 960GB option, it preserves nearly the same mainstream enterprise performance profile while keeping acquisition cost and fleet-wide replacement budgets more controlled. This makes 480GB especially well suited for mid-scale virtualization clusters, such as boot and utility storage for about 40 to 60 infrastructure-focused virtual machines.

FAQ